Dryad Research

For my sculpt I have decided to create a character bust of a Dryad or woodland nymph/ elfen creature. In Greek mythology, dryads are nymphs which inhabit trees or wood, and over the years many artists have interpreted them in a myriad of styles. I decided that the best way to begin designing my dryad would be to first look for inspiration for her, and see how this shapes my ideas towards her design.

Joanna Wolska

Polina Hristova

Eloise Girard

Assina Duongsaa

One thing that I found really interesting while researching dryads was just how differently they had been interpreted by different artists. You can see this in the ones above, Eloise Girard’s Dryad looks to be almost human, while Joanna Wolska’s is much more alien, with extended limns and seemingly formed completely from the tree it inhabits. The other two merge both these ideas, they seem human but have the natural elements fused with them. This is the sort of design I would like to create for my final product.

Moritz Heinemeyer

Daniel Orive

Daniel Orive

These designs are absolutely stunning, I love how the branches are twisted and the faces with them, especially how Moritz Heinemeyer has created this crown/ helmet from the branches. This is an element I would love to include in my final result as if I am able to do it I think it would look stunning.

From researching I have noticed that most artists tend to envisage dryads as having either horns, elfen ears, or both and so I decided to look at elves and fauns as well to see how people have approached giving humans horns, as I am not sure how I would go about this.

Stefan Vasilev

Ridwan Chandra Choa

Furio Tedeschi

Alex Mouron

Danny Mac – Concept by Jessica Madorran

Most artists seem to have approached horns either by having them slowly ease out from the head so that they are one thing, or by hiding the base of the horn either behind hair or with the dryad’s face being almost like a mask. I think that both these ways look really nice, however I much preferred Moritz Heinemeyer’s crown idea, but we’ll see how my concepts turn out!